Anatoly Cherdenko
Actor: Tim Curry
Name: Anatoly Cherdenko*Nationality:* Soviet*Affiliation:* Soviet Union*Original rank:* Colonel*Position after temporal alteration:* First Secretary of the Soviet Union*Other position:* General Secretary of the Communist Party*Associates:* Nikolai Krukov, Gregor Zelinsky, Dasha Fedorovich*Conflict:* Third World War*Game:* Red Alert 3
Canonical fate: Captured and placed in cryogenic detention Anatoly Cherdenko is the leader of the Soviet Union during the events of Red Alert 3 and the man directly responsible for the creation of this new timeline.
In the previous reality, however, Cherdenko is not the Soviet Leader. He is a senior officer, a Colonel in the Red Army, entrusted with overseeing a top-secret military project.
This project is led by the scientist Gregor Zelinsky, who succeeds in building a genuine time machine.
A year later, the Soviet Union is on the brink of collapse. The Allies are closing in on Moscow and the Soviet Premier has abandoned the capital. Cherdenko then decides to use Zelinsky’s invention to change history.
Accompanied by his superior, General Nikolai Krukov, and Zelinsky, Cherdenko travels back to 1927, to the Solvay Conference in Brussels.
His target is Albert Einstein, whose inventions have given the Allies a decisive technological advantage.
Cherdenko shakes the scientist’s hand and erases him from space-time, ironically replicating the very gesture by which Einstein himself had removed Adolf Hitler from history.
When the three men return to the present, the Soviet Union has once again become a superpower. But history has also been profoundly transformed.
As Einstein never carried out his major work, certain technologies have disappeared, notably nuclear weapons. Even more seriously for Moscow, a new power has emerged in Asia: the Empire of the Rising Sun.
Above all, Cherdenko discovers that this new reality is personally very favourable to him: he is now Premier of the Soviet Union, whilst Krukov commands the army.
This situation quickly gives rise to a rivalry between the two men. Krukov knows that Cherdenko did not hold this position in the original timeline and clearly views his former subordinate with suspicion.
Cherdenko nevertheless attempts to retain power whilst simultaneously waging war against the Allied Forces and the Empire of the Rising Sun.
He entrusts a large part of the military operations to a new Soviet Commander, chosen specifically because he wants an Officer who refuses to contemplate defeat.
As the new commander racks up victories, however, Cherdenko becomes increasingly paranoid. He begins to view his own generals as potential rivals and seeks to eliminate anyone who might threaten his authority.
This paranoia is a central characteristic of the character: Cherdenko is ambitious enough to rewrite history in order to save the Soviet Union, but once in power, he gradually becomes obsessed with his own political survival.
The role of Gregor Zelinsky also becomes problematic. Horrified by the consequences of their time travel, the scientist eventually reveals to the Allies that Cherdenko and Krukov have manipulated history.
Three possible fates
Like many characters in Red Alert 3, Cherdenko’s fate varies depending on the campaign played.
In the Soviet campaign, his paranoia eventually drives him to turn against his own Commander. Cherdenko attempts to eliminate him, but his forces are defeated and he loses power. This conclusion, however, is from the Soviet perspective and contradicts the other campaigns.
In the Imperial campaign, the Empire also uncovers the Soviet manipulation of time. Japanese forces attack Moscow and destroy the Kremlin. Cherdenko dies in the rubble after desperately proclaiming that he controls time.
It is, however, the Allied campaign that provides the outcome chosen for the continuity leading to Uprising.
Following Zelinsky’s defection, the Allies discover that Cherdenko is secretly preparing Kirovs equipped with gigantic bombs in Cuba. The operation is thwarted before the Kirov Airships can destroy Allied cities.
Realising that the war is lost, Cherdenko then decides to flee Earth.
He barricades himself inside the Peter and Paul Fortress in Leningrad, protected by Krukov’s forces and several Iron Curtains, and prepares to launch a space shuttle.
Cherdenko explains that he wishes to go to the only place which, in his view, has not yet been ‘corrupted by capitalism’: space.
The Allies launch a final assault, neutralise the Iron Curtains and destroy the shuttle before it takes off.
Cherdenko and Krukov are eventually captured and placed in cryogenic detention for crimes against humanity.
Anatoly Cherdenko is thus one of the most paradoxical characters in the Red Alert saga: he uses time travel to prevent the destruction of the Soviet Union, and through this manipulation becomes the leader he should never have been, before unwittingly bringing about the emergence of a new enemy capable of threatening that very same Soviet Union.